Comments
"Truthseeking" is a strange piece of jargon. I'm not sure what purpose it serves. It seems like the meaning of "truthseeking" ambiguates between "practicing good epistemology" and "being intellectually honest", as you describe. So, why not use one of those terms instead?
One thing that annoys me about the EA Forum (which I previously wrote about here) is that there's way too much EA Forum-specific jargon. One negative effect of this is it makes it harder to understand what people are trying to say. Another negative effect is it elevates a lot of interesting conjecture to the level of conventional wisdom. If you have some interesting idea in a blog post or a forum post, and then people are quick to incorporate that into the lingo, you've made that idea part of the culture, part of the conventional wisdom. And it seems like people do this too easily.
If you see someone using the term "truthseeking" on the EA Forum, then:
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There is no clear definition of this term anywhere that you can easily Google or search on the forum. There is a vague definition on the Effective Altruism Australia website. There is no entry for "truthseeking" in the EA Forum Wiki. The Wikipedia page for truth-seeking says, "Truth-seeking processes allow societies to examine and come to grips with past crimes and atrocities and prevent their future repetition. Truth-seeking often occurs in societies emerging from a period of prolonged conflict or authoritarian rule.[1] The most famous example to date is the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, although many other examples also exist."
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To the extent EA Forum users even have a clear definition of this term in their heads, they may be bringing along their own quirky ideas about epistemology or intellectual honesty or whatever. And are those good ideas? Who knows? Probably some are and a lot aren't. Making "truthseeking" a fundamental value and then defining "truthseeking" in your own quirky way elevates something you read on an obscure blog last year to the level of an idea that has been scrutinized and debated by a diverse array of scholars across the world for decades and stood the test of time. That's a really silly, bad way to decide which ideas are true and which are false (or dubious, or promising, or a mixed bag, or whatever).
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Chances are the person is using it passive-aggressively, or with the implication that they're more truthseeking than someone else. I've never seen someone say, "I wasn't being truthseeking enough and changed my approach." This kinda makes it feel like the main purpose of the word is to be passive-aggressive and act superior.
So, is this jargon anything but a waste of time?
Imo the biggest reason not to do this is that it's labeling the person or getting at their character. There's a threat implied that they will be dismissed out of hand bc they are categorically in bad faith. It can be weaponized.
I agree. The OP is in some sense performance art on my part, where I take a proposition that I think people might general justify with high-minded appeals to epistemology or community dynamics, and yet I give only selfish reasons for the conclusion.
At the same time, I do agree there are many altruistic reasons for the conclusion as well, such as yours. I think the specific issue with "truth-seeking" is that it has enough wiggle room where it might not necessarily be about someone's character (or at least less so than some of my alternatives), which means that when in the middle of a highly contentious discussion people can convince themselves that it's totally a great idea, more so than if they used something where the nature of the attack is more obvious.
To say someone is not "truthseeking" in Berkeley is like a righteous ex-communication. It gets to be an epistemic issue.